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Mutations

I have been eager to write an article on mutations for several months! According to the theory of evolution, supposedly creatures “evolve” by a process called “natural selection.” But what is being selected? According to the theory, creatures that undergo healthy mutations survive and creatures that experience unhealthy mutations may die. So far so good. But let’s examine this process a little closer to see if creatures can actually “evolve” via this process. Let’s have a little fun at it. Get out a deck of cards and we can see how this process works.

Now that you have a deck of cards, remove the clubs. Take the hearts and diamonds and assign a letter to each one as follows:

In other words, the Ace of Hearts is the letter A, the 2 of Hearts is the letter B, the 3 of Hearts is the letter C, and so on.

Now take the spades and assign letters as follows:

Thus, the spades will represent DNA, the code in our body that defines our form. In this case, the code says, “The dog ran fast.” This is just an arbitrary selection I made because this sentence makes sense to us and happens to have 13 letters. Had we made the code long enough (a few miles) it could have defined an entire “Man,” “Monkey,” “Giraffe,” “Worm,” or whatever.

Now let’s play a new card game called “Mutation.” The game is played as follows:

Pick a card (any card) from the spade deck. I picked the 3 of Spades which represents the letter E.

Now pick a card (any card) from the red deck. I picked a 3 of Diamonds that represents P.

Now we’re not so sure what ran fast. But we could still draw some sort of mental picture.

Pick another card from the spade deck. I picked a 9 of Spades which represents the N.

Pick a card from the red deck. I picked a 9 of Diamonds that represents V.

Exchange the N with the V. Your new sentence is, “Thp dof rav fast.”

By now, regardless of what cards you have been picking, you are starting to get the idea of the game. Continue the game until someone comes up with another intelligible sentence. The first one to derive an intelligible sentence by this method wins a prize!

What does this card game have to do with mutations and natural selection? Mutations are fully random in nature. Any gene could be mutated. Thus, the random selection of the individual spades represents the random selection of the gene to be mutated. What a mutated gene becomes, is also random. Thus, the random selection of the red cards determines what the mutated gene becomes.

The concept of “natural selection” assumes that, over millions of years, and millions of mutations, new creatures will evolve. Let’s look at this process that we simulated above.

First of all, the original sentence was written by intelligent life; me. (Well, somewhat intelligent.)

Second, the sentence could have never occurred by accident. Even if the letters randomly aligned in this order (a probability of 4 x 10-19), without word definitions, the words are useless.

After only three mutations, the sentence that was originally intelligible is no longer intelligible at all. Thus, our creature (symbolized by the sentence) would have certainly died from these three mutations alone!

No new information was formed. The more complex a life form is, the more information that is required to define it.

Even if the sentence would have become, “The cat ran fast,” the creature would have still been dead. This sentence appears intelligible to us, but to the original creature with these genes, the word, “cat” is undefined. The only possible way to introduce new information is by design – just as we designed the original sentence in the first place! The designer not only has to provide the increased information, but also must define the meaning of this information!

Without adding new information, about the only possible “mutation” that would still be somewhat intelligible would be, “Fast ran the dog.” This is a variation of the same theme. Micro-Evolution certainly does provide variation within a species.

To over come these technical difficulties, scientists tell us that the mutations must have occurred very rapidly; in short bursts. If you believe this is a possible solution, play the game above in short bursts and see if the results are any different. Oh, and once the sentence is completely destroyed, feel free to start over again. This will simulate mutations of many creatures instead of just one.

Mutations are a direct result of sin (Gen 3:17-19) entering the world. I have been pondering this concept of mutations for several months. Ever since May 16th to be precise. As you can see from the game above, mutations are almost always detrimental. Mutations are responsible for allergies, albinism, cancer, arthritis, increased risk of heart disease, muscular dystrophy, color blindness, cystic fibrosis, and diabetes, just to name a few. Our 5 year old son, David, was diagnosed with Type I diabetes on May 16th. Unlike Type II diabetes, Type I cannot be controlled by diet or oral medicine. Doctors believe that, due to a mutant gene, part of David’s pancreas was destroyed leaving him dependent on insulin injections for the rest of his life. Mutations are serious destroyers of life. The evolutionary theory that mutations can actually be responsible for new life forms is completely absurd!

And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. Gen 1:26-27